Working a 9-5 (What a Way to Make a Living)

School teaches us many things. How to read, write, communicate, how to understand science, maths. It tells us how to write a good CV, how to do well in an interview, even. But what it doesn’t teach us is how absolutely exhausting it is to work a ‘9-5’.

I went from rolling out of bed at 7:30am, throwing on a pair of slacks and being home by 3:15pm – to being up and caffeinated by 7:00am, fighting with trousers and button up shirts and not being home until 6pm.

It was a shock to the system at the very least, and something that I haven’t yet got used to. A whole month of 37.5-hour weeks and I still scream at my alarm and throw pillows at it when it goes off every day at 6:00am.

No matter how much I love my new job, it takes me a few cups of coffee every morning before I can talk myself out of taking a duvet day. (I have the email addressed to the Directors saved in my drafts, just in case I run out of coffee one day!)

But, as soon as I turn my computer on at the office, I suddenly feel wide awake. Like someone has just put fresh batteries in me, I’m ready to go and energetic. For some reason, I just have to drag myself every single day to get that point.

Perhaps the problem is that I can never seem to be able to fall asleep at night. Every day I wake up cursing myself for not going to sleep earlier, but then that night I end up reading in bed or scrolling on my phone or just staring at my ceiling and still sleep won’t come. It’s a vicious cycle, really.

The only time this sleep pattern stops is on the weekend. I get home on Friday night, full of hope for the freedom of the next few days, and somehow, I’m snoring by 9pm. When I have to sleep, I can’t, when I don’t want to, I’m flat out before the sun has even set.

Sometimes I barely even make it out of my work clothes – once I woke up at 2am on Saturday morning in a pencil skirt. I remember getting home from work, collapsing in bed, and the rest is a blur. Clearly, I wasn’t built for nights out.

I can only hope that working in an office every day helps me to adjust to this new sleep routine. Or perhaps I’ll have to get some caffeine patches.

So, if you don’t hear from me for a while, you can assume it’s because Amazon Prime didn’t deliver the patches in time to stop me from taking that email out of drafts one morning.

Wish me luck!

To find out more about how Molly’s doing, keep an eye on our blog pages or contact us for a chat and a coffee – she would be delighted to tell you more.